One question about how GMAT captures my answer response

[andi]

Hi Stacey, I just took my exam today and had a concern about how the GMAT captures my answer response.
I was answering my last verbal question. I selected the answer, then I clicked the right bottom button ("Submit" or "Confirm" I can't remember). Then, the "Confirmed Response" window popped up. As I clicked "Yes" on the window, the time ran down to 0:00.
Then, the next screen popped up.

In this case, I wonder if the GMAT would capture my last response to the question or it would treat my last question as "unanswered" and penalize me for not finishing the exam on time.

I read from other posts that the penalty of leaving one unanswered question is 3 points. I wonder if that means 3 percentile drop (from 72%ile to 69%ile) or 3 raw score drop (from V37 to V34)?

My final verbal raw score was 34 (69%). It is really close to my last exam verbal raw score (33). However, I felt that my last 10 questions on verbal was definitely harder than my last verbal exam. That's why I have a strong feeling that my last question was not captured and my verbal raw score was severely penalized.

P.S. I realized that Manhattan GMAT CAT exam would treat my selected-but-not-confirmed answer as "unanswered".

Thank you for your time in advance!

[StaceyKoprince]

It did record your last answer. If the test times out on you but you have already selected an answer on screen, then it will save that answer even if you didn't click next or confirm.

The penalty drop if you did leave something unanswered varies depending upon a bunch of variables, but the drop refers to the percentile drop, not the raw score drop. It seems that it can drop anywhere from 1.5 to 3 or so percentile points.

It's also possibly the case that, when you hit the harder questions, you then messed up your timing a bit (got slowed down, then had to rush, and maybe made some mistakes on things you knew how to do). It's also possible that the questions weren't really harder but you were feeling mentally fatigued / worn out, and so they just felt harder - it's really hard to tell.